[CHAPTER XI.]
TO THE NIGER.
Once outside the village, it behoved Park to be on the alert, and get as quickly from the vicinity of the Moors as possible. With his horse reduced to skin and bone speed was out of the question, while the darkness and the nature of the country otherwise made progress slow. And yet how much was staked on every dragging mile—every moment might mean freedom or bondage, life or death to him. Half frantic at the thought of recapture, he imagined an enemy behind each bush, in every sound the tramp of pursuing horsemen.
It looked as if his worst apprehensions were about to be realised when unawares he stumbled upon a Moorish watering-place. Before he could retreat he was discovered by the shepherds. Immediately there was a howl of execration, and he was set upon with stones and curses, and driven forth as if he had been a prowling beast of prey.
Thankful to have escaped unhurt, Park, once rid of the fanatics, began to be more hopeful. He was not to get away so easily, however. Suddenly a shout rang behind bidding him halt. He hardly needed to look to know the nature of the danger that threatened. Three Moors on horseback were in full pursuit, ferociously brandishing their weapons, and screaming out threats as they bore down on him. Escape was impossible—his jaded steed was beyond all urging. With the dogged indifference of despair he turned and rode back prepared for the worst. Unmoved he looked at the upraised muskets of his pursuers—almost unheeding, so benumbed were his faculties, he heard that they were sent to bring him back to Ali. In reality, however, the Moors were robbers, and their object merely plunder.
On reaching a wood the wretches ordered their prisoner to untie his bundle. Great was their disgust to find nothing worth taking but a cloak. But to Park his cloak was the sole protection from the rains by day and the mosquitoes by night, and in vain he followed the robbers, trying to move their compassion, and earnestly begging them to return the garment. For sole reply, one of the band, annoyed at his persistence, presented a musket at him, while another struck his horse a brutal blow over the head. There was no resisting these hints, and once more possessed by the keen desire for life and liberty, Park parleyed no longer, but turned and rode off.
The moment he was out of sight he struck into the woods to avoid similar encounters. As he passed on, the sense of security growing ever stronger with the passing night, his sanguine temperament gradually resumed its sway. He felt as one recovered from a dangerous illness—he breathed freer, his limbs were as if released from cramping fetters, while the Niger magnet drew him on irresistibly as ever. Life became more desirable, earth and heaven more beautiful, and even the desert lost half its terrors. Beggary and the miseries of the rainy season grew less terrible to face with the growth of the hope that the guerdon of success was yet to be won.
But man cannot live on hope alone. However fair it might paint the vision of the future, it could not stifle the present demands of nature. Only too painfully Park awoke to the fact that starvation stared him in the face. He was destitute, and could not buy; unarmed, and therefore could not take; hunted, and therefore dared not beg. His every step was beset with innumerable dangers. His one chance lay in reaching a Bambarra village, where he would be among the negroes, and safe at least from the Moors.
To the pangs of hunger was speedily added the yet more painful agony of thirst. The sun overhead beat down upon him from heavens of lurid brilliancy. The scorching white sands, blinding to look upon, reflected back the heat as from the mouth of a furnace.
From the tree tops not a trace of human habitation was to be seen. Alone patches of thick scrub and hillocks of barren sand met the eye. In pushing on lay the only hope of escaping death. With his old undaunted spirit Park elected to push on—to struggle while his legs would carry him.